TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: All right. So we can do that.

CLIENT: OK.

THERAPIST: Yea, I'm thinking if you cross it out, it would probably leave a space.

CLIENT: Right. (pause) I remember a very sinking feeling as I was leaving that whatever we were talking about was a thread that I wanted to pick up. And I'm trying to pick it up in five days intervening have been not so kind to that particular thread. [0:01:08] So maybe we'll park it. I don't know. I mean, I didn't really have a very clear sense that... anyway. (sigh) (pause) It's always the tension for me between this sort of urge and compulsion and desire for continuity and I... on this sort of narrating things. (chuckling) So maybe I'll start with what's going on now. (pause) [0:01:58]

There was this extended episode that lasted through yesterday, I guess. It began with an interaction. And all these interactions are electronic. (chuckling) So this feels like a brave new world of workplace interactions. There is a team of people who are putting together this organization-wide initiative. A kind of core team three people that we work with most intensely Jack (ph) and I and Steve (ph) sort of the president's office is a key component of something that institutionally is being kind of rooted in this other department. [0:03:06]

THERAPIST: OK.

CLIENT: And three people in that department are principally involved in organizing this thing. Scott (ph) is one of them. He's European. And there's his boss, Ben (ph), who's fairly senior. And then there is an experienced employee who I think since he came to the company has been doing most of the organizing stuff who I think he technically is inferior to Hank (ph). So it's Nick (ph), Hank (ph), Scott (ph). And I get along pretty well with Ben (ph), I would say. And I've been getting along quite well with Nick (ph).

Scott (ph) has been stand offish. And I think I never know whether I'm being accurate in assessing when people are feeling threatened. Or have a sense that I'm trying to talk too much. [0:04:12] And that I'm a risk for doing some damage to them. It might be that they're just put off by me. But Scott (ph) has been not impolite. He's very (inaudible at 0:04:23) but standoffish.

And so we had this project this joint project a kind of vision statement, fairly brief. And I think I talked about last week Steve's (ph)... this kid was kind of pushing for it and finally I just said fuck it. OK, it's ridiculous to compete with a 26 year old about something so trivial on.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So on Thursday Steve (ph) evening Steve (ph) went off to a wedding leaving nobody to hold the pen. [0:05:02] And I considered doing it. And then I'm just like fuck it. Whatever, I'll feed into it leaving since Nick (ph) isn't involved in this particular project Scott (ph) and Ben (ph) to hold the pen. And Ben (ph) kind of turfed to Scott (ph) which I could tell he wasn't thrilled about since he's the senior guy. But Scott (ph) took it up and was holding the pen. And Scott (ph) is...

THERAPIST: Scott (ph) wasn't thrilled about it?

CLIENT: My inference from the e-mail. I mean, it's like...

THERAPIST: Yea. (inaudible at 0:05:43).

CLIENT: Yea, yea, yea, yea, yea. Ben (ph) was just like, "All right. Well, these are my comments. Scott (ph), do you mind integrating them?"

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Scott was (ph) like, "OK, fine. I'll do it."

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And he's got a shit load of things to do right now.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: Because it's kind of... the shit is kind of hitting the fan. And all of this stuff is now... has now got to turn into a real progress. [0:06:05] So let's see. Scott (ph) did so came back with a draft the following day that had restored some things that I had cut out of Steve's (ph) draft because I think didn't work very well. A case study in particular that was just completely aspecific and whatever. It was not a very helpful illustration.

So I wrote... Jack (ph) was working on a speech so, unavailable. Steve (ph) was gone. So I was left and it wasn't my preferred role. But I feel like there's a function that the office serves of kind of ratifying these documents. [0:07:09] And Scott (ph) actually appealed to us and in practice, I was the person who was left, right?

So I wrote back. I said this, "Is a ton of things is great. But this is one example I'm a little concerned about." And he wrote back this grumpy, unsigned, one line e-mail saying, "OK, fine. Well, I mean, if you want to hold the pen, you can integrate it." (sigh) So I'm like OK, fine. I think the detail is important, in part, because it's about interactions. So it's a little funny talking about a detail in these e-mail exchanges.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But this is what I've got.

THERAPIST: Yea, yea.

CLIENT: These are all the interactions I do. So went back and it was kind of a nice unsigned e-mail but saying, "OK, fine. Let me tell you what. I'll give so and so a ring. Because that's where the story came from the case study that was written up so vaguely came from. If I can't get anything from her, maybe we'll substitute for this other thing."

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: "Otherwise, I think it's great and I think it's ready to go." Send. So five minutes later it probably hadn't... or two minutes later Ben (ph) writes back saying, "Scott (ph), I think this is great. Why don't you write out blah, blah, blah without the example that Galen (ph) doesn't like," et cetera. I said... it clearly was getting complicated in terms of the interaction. So I said, "OK, fine! Thanks everybody for all the work. Whatever. Galen (ph)." Scott (ph) writes back about a half hour later saying, "I looked at it and I didn't really feel comfortable taking the example out. But I revised it along such and such lines," referring to my earlier e-mail in which I hypothetically said if it had such and such, then it would be fine. [0:09:10]

So he understood it in part because he's not a native English speaker I suspect so the conditional statement was a little difficult to pick up on he understood it as an assertion of detail that existed rather than a hypothetical about what kind of detail would be necessarily to make it useful. He integrated it and was about to send out the draft. So I wrote back and I said, "Hey Scott (ph) that was just a hypothetical."

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: "We probably should take that out." He writes back saying, "OK, fine. Here's the final version for distribution," restoring the case study that was completely vague. So I'm like fuck. Should I push this or should I not push this? And I looked it up and it turned out that not only was the example vague but it had completely garbled the case study. [0:10:06] So that it had said, "Oh, great progress has been made in this location," when in fact in the year that they're talking about this province had come in last in all of the rankings of provinces in terms of educational attainment.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: So I wrote back and I say, "Listen Scott (ph)..." Or it was actually a very nice e-mail. I included the details that I had discovered from the researcher. I said, "Listen guys, I'm sorry to hold this up. But such and such was garbled. We really can't use this. Open to ideas about what to do." Scott (ph) writes back another pissy unsigned e-mail saying, "I don't have any time to do this right now. Somebody else wants to integrate it, fine. Otherwise I suggest we just send it out and fix it later."

And so I'm like fuck man. [0:11:00] We can't like... on the one hand, whatever. On the other hand there are three hands in this... the exposition on the one hand, whatever. On the other hand, I'm pissed off. What the hell? You know what I mean? What am I, three years old? Well, that's what I felt. It was like I was just being completely dismissed. That was the way that it felt and it was translated to me.

THERAPIST: Unappreciated.

CLIENT: Just sort of describing to my state of mind.

THERAPIST: Yea, yea, yea, yea.

CLIENT: And on the third hand, I felt a kind of responsibility. It's like we can't let shit like this go out.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I mean, granted it's only to a group. But it's like a group of 30 people. And this is like I totally egregiously wrong and incorrect. I didn't know how wrong and incorrect it was until...

THERAPIST: Until you went to look it up.

CLIENT: Well, I mean I went to look it up and I found out that it was incorrect.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I wrote back and I said, "Listen, we really shouldn't have an inaccuracy floating around. So I'll just take it out," and in the attachment just taking it out and rewritten to mask the whatever. [0:12:06] Scott (ph) says, "OK, fine. Great." And we let it go at that and sent it on to the person who's organizing the circulation of things who then circulated, et cetera. (sigh) And that was the end of the story. I mean, that was the end of the chain. There were no further communications on this chain. But all weekend I felt really kind of devastated. A sense of anxiety that overpowering. I looked at my correspondence afterwards a number of times. I do this. I do this.

THERAPIST: Yes, right.

CLIENT: I do this looking for signs, pro or con. They're usually inconclusive that I have transgressed, that I have been inappropriate. [0:13:03] That I'm bound or deserving of being cut off in some way. And that was all I could think about all weekend was the likelihood as it felt that as a result of my contribution to this exchange, I would be cut off.

Now at a certain point, I had wanted to talk to Jack (ph). We had planned... we had had a discussion about these publications plan that I've been putting together on Friday with the publisher and what we wanted to follow up together. He was in the middle of writing this speech that Kevin (ph) gave in Columbia University. This big, very fancy public address on weighty topics. [0:14:05]

So he was kind of out of commission and he wrote back very nicely during... and responded quickly during the course of Saturday when we planned to talk saying we're still in the thick of this and we'll talk later. And finally we ended up postponing until Sunday. So the whole weekend I'm kind of absorbed by this. And I'm feeling like the risk of being cut off. And one of the responses that I had was to further investigate this...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...case study. And I discovered that in all likelihood the reason is vague or at least a plausible case can be made that the reason it is vague is not just inattention but the fact that the head of this province is running for election for President of Venezuela in 2014. [0:15:02] And he's got a very clear interest in overstating the extent of progress in his educational institutions. And so on and so forth. So not only is this a garbled case study but it's a really completely inappropriate endanger and be a dangerous for us to use as a kind of an illustration of this vision statement for the company.

So I spend I don't know not a huge amount of time but a little bit of time documenting the fact that I was right. And worrying about whether I would have to defend myself. Just concerned... I don't even know how to describe it. I felt like this existential threat that I needed to fend off in some kind of I don't know kabuki play in which if I didn't fend it off if I didn't have ammunition, if I couldn't line up the argument then my intervention would have been completely inappropriate and grounds for ostracism. [0:16:10]

And my sense is that Scott (ph) is really kind of... I have no idea. I really don't know how to reality check this. But I have a persistent sense that Scott (ph) with some collusion by Steve (ph) is trying to kind of cut me out of the activities that he's coordinating. And that while I feel especially after this last visit in this conversation with Kevin (ph) some more existential security than I'd had in previous months...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...I guess in my fantasy world here just what we were talking about... (laughing) [0:17:04]

THERAPIST: Even where we are, yea.

CLIENT: ...my fantasy world my inability to work with this team of people because Scott (ph) is cutting me out...

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: ...at Steve's (ph) instigation is going to prejudice my ability to do whatever it is that I end up taking on as part of my repaired relationship with Kevin (ph). This speaks to like All My Children. (chuckling) I mean, just these kind of crude approximations of actual human relations has seemed weird. And I think one of the reasons they're crude is that they happen so much at a distance. In other words, there's a certain richness of human interaction that's missing when most of the interactions are by e-mail. So I don't know. I mean, there's an air of unreality about them as I describe them in this way that...

THERAPIST: That like makes them more programmed to your fantasy.

CLIENT: Yea, yea, exactly, exactly. [0:18:00] So I mean, just... anyway. So that's basically what I was feeling. But what I was actually feeling physically was oppression. I mean, I felt acute distress. Not only all weekend, but all the way up to yesterday evening when it wasn't even like I talked with Jack (ph). But he said he copied me on an e-mail looping me into a conversation that he had been having with Scott (ph). And kind of emphasizing that I was sort of intended by the office to contribute to such things. (pause)

So it was acute distress all yesterday, most of the weekend until the very end of the weekend. Monday was a little bit better. I was working on other things. But I mean, I don't... I could feel it. I'm not there.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: You could tell that I... that this sense of oppression is not something I'm feeling right now because I'm (inaudible at 0:19:03).

THERAPIST: But I can also tell that you're not that far from it.

CLIENT: I'm... yea. I'm not that far from it. I really have this... it feels very intimate my recollection of it.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: And then all of a sudden, I get copied it wasn't even an e-mail to me I get copied on this e-mail from Jack (ph) in which I was kind of an organic part of the proceedings mentioned by name. And it all went away.

So I had a conversation with (inaudible at 0:19:35) about this over the weekend after I had finally talked with Jack (ph) and kind of re-felt... reintegrated to a pattern of human events. I had a talk with her and I said, "God, this is crazy. It's just... it's so disruptive. It feels so bad." [0:19:59] And she said something that she's said before which is that maybe the solution is... I said... the conversation was, "Marshall (ph), you're very helpful. And clearly they're productive and I want to continue with them." But I don't know. And she said, "Well, why don't you try some pharmaceutical solution?" I said, "Well, I've tried benzodiazepine. They weren't very helpful. I've tried SSRIs, they weren't very helpful," blah, blah, blah.

And it... the transition from anxiety to lack of anxiety is so clearly psychodynamic. I'm like what the hell use is it as a pharmaceutical intervention going to be when what I seem to need for relief is so independent of whatever my biochemical state appears to be? And anyway, the conversation ended there. I said I'm very open to doing it. Maybe I should but I just... it feels like a bad candidate for this kind of intervention. [0:21:00] And yet I can't do this. It's so disruptive, Marshall (ph). It's so painful. I mean, it's like it's suffering. It really... I don't mean to be histrionic. (sigh) But it's... it feels so bad.

THERAPIST: Yea. (pause)

CLIENT: And it's so distorting. It's my interactions are very distorted. And I can control them a little bit from e-mail. Although it exacerbates, I think, some of the characteristics. But it really makes it hard to function apart from making it really almost intolerable to be. [0:22:01] So they're both practical and I don't know. Life quality.

THERAPIST: Yea. I guess one thing that's striking me is this impression I have that you feel you almost can't communicate enough or can't quite get across how terribly painful, disruptive, gut wrenching these experiences are when you have them. If like as though I don't sort of fully appreciate how terrible they are for you. [0:23:14] And I...

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: ...can imagine that on another level you would think that I do.

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: And that I'm...

CLIENT: On some level, I do.

THERAPIST: Yes. But I still actually think this is important. I guess what it makes me think is that it sort of reflects, I think, this split that can sometimes be there in yourself around them in that you're kind of just coming off one now. You're close enough to it and we talked enough about this kind of thing that it's still very much alive even though you're not in it. [0:24:02]

The part of you that experienced these things and the part of that you doesn't are sort of in enough communication that you... that's it quite palpable of what happened. But I think that may be in danger of slipping away that as you settle down and continue to feel better and so forth that there's... I think you feel some danger that you'll kind of lose touch with a part of yourself that experienced these few things. I think that's partly why you're so emphatic about how bad they are as to try to make sure that we don't lose touch with what that's like for you.

CLIENT: Here's what I'm conscious of. I think that that sounds plausible. I don't have any conscious sense of doing precisely that. [0:25:02] But it doesn't sound unreasonable. What I am aware of not so much of being afraid of losing it although that's a thing that we talked about as recently as ten minutes ago as wanting to use my intimate recollection of this to do something differently. That's the impulse and again, an impulse that's come up before. It's like OK, this is... it's good to be on the other side of it. And I'm happy that I'm able to both sort of relate it and...

THERAPIST: Not be in the middle of it.

CLIENT: ...not be in the middle of it.

THERAPIST: Yea, absolutely.

CLIENT: But what's the good of relating it if it's just going to recur again. And I mean you have to realize. I mean, this is something... but you do realize, right? OK one, I just... I feel the need to emphasize that in the last two months this has probably recurred again and again and again in more or less the same trajectory with more or less the same kind of triggering conditions 25 times. [0:26:20] And maybe ten of them have been at this acute level. And oh God, I mean I'm shortening my life. I'm making my life unpleasant. I'm making my interactions very difficult.

I feel urgency to intervene and I also I feel something else. And that's that the only thing that has made this tolerable it's clear to me is having somebody that I genuinely trust as my interlocutor. [0:27:01] He's gone on June 30th. And I feel real urgency to figure out some better way of interacting about this by that time. Otherwise, this is going to be tough. And whatever other setting I find myself in, I'm going to have... put it this way. If I continue in this vein through some configuration of what I'm doing the way that we're handling it now, I won't have an ally. And if I go another route, I won't have anybody I know intimately although it would be a completely new work situation.

So I feel some urgency to at least begin to figure out what some way of at least diminishing the height. [0:28:06] I'm not trying to completely reengineer my psyche but some way of at least mitigating some of these acute episodes. I just... I can't... so I feel that urgency. I'm not making demands of our interaction or psychotherapy in general of the world or the cosmos. I'm just saying that some of my emphasis some of this emphatic presentation comes about from a sense that I don't always have access to this. I have access to it now.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: But I really feel...

THERAPIST: Got it. You...

CLIENT: ...urgency. I really feel some urgency to figure out what I would need to do over the next few months to set some mitigating process in motion. [0:29:00] (pause) I feel really good really a very fine, intimate, well developed sense of what's going on here. I mean, I... whatever. It's what I've been yakking about this for seven years now actively. And if I didn't learn something, something would be askew. (chuckling) But I do. I mean, I feel like it really has led to an evolution that's very productive of how well I understand it and how clear it is kind of what's going on.

And now I feel some urgency with the intervention that has been a running theme in our interactions. I don't say is new but it's... I feel like that the timeframe is a little bit new. [0:30:01] And I really do feel some urgency. I don't know if that works. I don't know if that's productive. It may be counterproductive. It may be...

THERAPIST: Well, it's what you feel or it's there.

CLIENT: ...artifactual. But it's what I feel. It is what I feel. (pause) [0:31:00] (pause)

THERAPIST: OK. Well, I have a few thoughts. (pause) [0:32:01] I mean, in a way... (pause) OK, all right. I think there's a way in which as you talk clearly you are still in it. You're not in this incident from over the weekend. But you're in a kind of a similar one where you feel, again, that you're place at work and in life is in extreme jeopardy. [0:33:00]

This happens all the time. Jack (ph) is the main as you said like interlocutor. But then he's leaving. And you're really scared. And kind of desperate about what's going to happen after that. So I think that does reiterate exactly the situation we're talking about. And that you do feel very worried about it. And you're appealing me to help you with that.

And as I think about it, the configuration of these situations tends, I think, consistently to involve sort of a bad guy or somebody who poses a threat. [0:34:16] And a good guy who's sort of something of a savior is a little too strong but somebody who can reaffirm your place. And sometimes those two people... sometimes those two roles are played by the same person. And sometimes they're played by different people. In the case you're talking about today that happened over the weekend, they're two different people. Scott (ph) is the bad guy and Jack (ph) is the good guy. I mean, to caricature them in a way.

CLIENT: It's a caricature. The thing is a caricature.

THERAPIST: Yea, whereas as partners often both were Jean (ph). So at the moment I think what is sort of another triangle with you, me and Jack (ph) where Jack (ph) in a way is the bad guy. [0:35:02] Because he's usually the really good guy except he's leaving. And I'm the good... hopefully the good guy you're trying to appeal it. (chuckling)

CLIENT: There's an important difference. I mean, I'm not denying the analysis at all. I think it's interesting and worth talking about.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: But the difference I don't feel any of the same sort of...

THERAPIST: I mean I don't feel any antipathy for Jack (ph).

CLIENT: No, no, no, no, no, no. Not antipathy. What is really oppressive and debilitating is the oppression. It's like the world that... seriously, my vision becomes tunnel vision. My ability to move is reduced. My breathing becomes very shallow. I mean, there are...

THERAPIST: I mean, the truth is as I understand it and as awful as it now is actually considerably better.

CLIENT: Way better. I mean, it's like...

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:35:58) how it was before. So I don't... my point I'm saying that...

CLIENT: I'm super animated that maybe that's a sign that there's some kind of physiological or whatever.

THERAPIST: No, no. The point...

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: Yea, go ahead.

CLIENT: No, I mean, it was like the way that I feel now which is animated, engaged, kind of... I'm interacting with you. I'm listening to what you're saying.

THERAPIST: Yea, yea, yes.

CLIENT: All of these things are completely different from the way that I feel in this state. So while I don't know there's something psychodynamically that does... I mean, I see the correspondence that you're talking about. There's something essential that's different now and maybe it's useful or interesting to think about what that might be.

THERAPIST: I see. So you're saying right now your guts don't feel like they're twisted around...

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: ...in the way that they did over the weekend.

CLIENT: Totally.

THERAPIST: And made a caricature of your...

CLIENT: I feel...

THERAPIST: I think you're quite anxious at the moment.

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: But you don't feel that sort of like gut-wrenching state of disturbance. [0:37:00]

CLIENT: I'm anxious.

THERAPIST: Or derangement.

CLIENT: I'm... derangement. Put it this way. My father, who certainly struggled with all kinds of psychic...

THERAPIST: Turmoil.

CLIENT: ...turmoil of his own, thank you.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Certainly would use what I think is kind of archaic term in psychoanalysis hysterical depression to describe what he would feel sometimes. And it would be associated... it was like he was depressed and feeling bad and lousy. He wouldn't use it to me. I don't remember exactly. I think he talked about it in the generic and it quickly became clear that he was talking about himself. He would be animated or even manic. And I feel like in my sort of hand motions and expressions right now, there's a little bit of manic activity. And I think I see the kind of anxiety that you're talking about in our conversation.

THERAPIST: Yea. [0:38:08]

CLIENT: But the expression is very different. And it may be the case though I would have to think about it that this is a kind of regular polarity of whatever it is that I'm feeling. Whatever anxieties that I'm feeling are sometimes expressed in a kind of... I don't... for lack of a better term depressive way or restrictive way in some of... sometimes in a kind of expansive way. And the expansive way feels much better. I mean, if this is indeed the flip side of something, I feel a hell of a lot better. I mean, like my sort of conscious sense is I feel like running. I feel like doing things. I feel productive. I feel like I'm able to write, all this stuff.

I mean, one of the things that happened yesterday was that I was trying to produce a page and a half sort of distilled briefing paper on this work plan with Jack (ph) and the senior staff member. [0:39:13] And I tried to do it on Monday and I just couldn't. And I tried to do it all yesterday and I just felt so oppressed. I couldn't. Finally I banged it out. Sent it to Jack (ph) feeling really just sort of freaked out about how long it had taken me. Of course he didn't care because he'd been writing this speech and kind of recovering from the aftermath of it. But I was really worried that I would cut off. I mean, I just felt something with Jack (ph) but with the good guy and the bad guy.

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: It's like classic. And what happens after I complete something, it was a little delay that I feel this sort of manic energy or active energy as opposed to passive energy or however you want to put it which stems equally from the anxiety. [0:40:12] In other words, it's not as if the psychic correlate is any different. But its expression is very different. And it feels a lot better. And that's kind of some taste of what I'm feeling now. So the extent that I'm still in it...

THERAPIST: So you say there's sort of like...

CLIENT: That's what it feels like.

THERAPIST: ...an anxiety that you can be a little more productive with an anxiety that's just really debilitating.

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, sometimes it's hard to control. Meaning, my interactions with people are a bit odd.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And I think it may be that some of those interactions are one reason why Scott (ph) is a little reserved around me.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: That's also possible. But I feel better. [0:41:00] If this was all that there was if we could somehow restrict my...

THERAPIST: This is much more livable.

CLIENT: I like... yea. This is livable. This I can deal with. This is can...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...kind of control whereas the other is just like one modality that I can't see any of... yea.

THERAPIST: We've got to stop. I think it may have to do with how much in touch or out of touch you feel with the good guy in the situation. And in this incident you're talking to me. In the other incident that you felt sort of somehow closer to Jack (ph) whereas previously in this other issue, it may have felt like he was kind of off somewhere doing something else and you were sort of stuck getting knifed by Scott (ph) or whatever. But anyway, we should...

CLIENT: We should stop...

THERAPIST: ...stop.

CLIENT: ...and take it up on Friday.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: All right. Check you don't have here but you'll bring it on Friday?

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: Is that so?

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And you'll send a revised bill?

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: That sounds good.

THERAPIST: Sorry about that.

CLIENT: That's OK. See you later.

THERAPIST: Yea.

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